Pinging is, perhaps the most important feature in Dota 2. Every Dota players use this feature on every match on a daily basis either to communicate with their teammates or to annoy them. In fact, it is the single most feature of Dota 2 that is used more than items and abilities.
So how can you use this feature? In this article, we have discussed everything you need to know about pinging in Dota 2.
Use Ping to Inform/ Alert Your Teammates
As most people will get annoyed by random voice chats and typing in Dota 2, pinging is your most effective bet when you want to communicate with your teammates. It is a short, simple way to convey your current thoughts to your teammates.
Inform Teammates
Pinging can be used in both offensive and defensive ways in Dota 2. In laning phase, if you are playing carry or an offlaner, you can ping your support to pull a camp or deny a ranged creep by pinging them. You can use your Alt key + Left mouse button on the ground to ping an ally.
Although pinging on the ground doesn’t specifically tell what you want to do, most people familiar with the game would automatically guess what you’re trying to say.
For instance, pinging on the small camp would mean that you want to pull the camp, and pinging near your ranged creep when it’s in deny range will indicate that you want to deny that creep.
Similarly, pinging near an enemy ranged creep means that you want him to attack that creep so the enemy can’t deny it. You can also ping enemy heroes if you want to attack/ harass them and zone them out.
Alert Teammates
You can also use pings to alert your teammates when you think they are in danger. The alert ping has a different sound and icon than a regular ping and can be done by holding down the Ctrl key + Alt key + Left mouse button on the ground.
The alert ping means that the area around the pinged location is dangerous and teammates in that area should retreat as soon as possible. This ping can be a lifesaver, especially in the nighttime when everyone’s vision range is reduced.
Ping Abilities/ Items
Apart from normal pings, you can also ping items and abilities in Dota 2. In fact, you can ping about almost everything in this game. The cooldown of big abilities and items, bounty and power runes, buyback status, and the enemy’s HP/ mana pool can all be pinged.
They can be pinged by holding down the Alt key + Left mouse button on the things that you want to ping.
Customize Ping Wheels
Besides normal pings, there are also other different types of pings in Dota 2. You can also use ping to notify your team to deward/ward certain areas, retreat from certain areas, and attack certain areas/enemies.
To use other types of pings, hold down the Alt key + Left mouse button and without releasing the button, rotate the mouse.
You can also customize these buttons by clicking on Settings > Customize Ping Wheels.
